#but sometimes tragedy and profound themes are best told in the silence

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 16 thoughts

(giggling and kicking my feet) it’s mulder and scully time <3

and it was a GOOD episode!!! i was sad, but damn was i compelled! back to the very beginning of the episode to begin the note-taking journey, with a tiny recap of where we left off beneath the “keep reading” bar…

hehehehe i am excited!! i love to spend the evening with the ultimate duo. and we have so much to cover!

so many twists and turns to walk down! krycek is back! skinner is hurt! scully is sleuthing! mulder is in hong kong! we had best begin!

YAAAS we got another “previously on the x files” <- i loathed these at first for throwing me off my typical groove, but now that i know we only bust them out on special occasions (multiple part episodes) i look forward to them

ugh scully is so pretty. “you say that every time” and it’s true every time??? 

we get a recap: flash bang alien, inky eyes, skinner on a hunt for answers before being interrupted, scully’s dad’s friend johansen, the rat bastard 

timeskip to 1953. a man from johansen’s squad who is covered in burns is telling his story, and it is being recorded. he is being visited by those who claim to want to bring him to justice, but he says he won’t tell. 

so after johansen started a mutiny and locked the rest of the sailors in the sub, those trapped on the lower levels knocked the dude with the inky eyes on the head with a wrench. so he is knocked tf out. and liquid started pouring from his eyes (BLEAUGH) and into a drain. the survivor who has all the burns and who is recounting this calls the liquid “the enemy”

a guy that looks a lot like matty healy (but much cleaner) is asking him what he means by calling liquid “the enemy”. so the interviewee says that the thing went back to where it came from. 

GASP!!!!!! HE ADDRESSES THE MATTY HEALY LOOKING FELLOW AS “MR. MULDER”!!!!!! oh this is JUICY!!! and the camera pans over to another man putting in a cigarette!! GASP!!! WE KNOW WHO THAT IS!!!!

baby cig man says “you can trust all of us” (<- LIES, LYING, SAID BY A GUY WHO IS LYING)

(you can tell the actor playing baby cig man had just one line but he worked SO hard to get cig man's voice right... it made me giggle)

why does young mr mulder look kinda cute. aww. so little. almost wanna squish his cheeks.

they changed the intro again. smh! messing with my rhythm.

anyway, back to main plot. scully’s rolling up to the hospital to find skinner, where she is met by agent fuller and agent caleca, two names i do not think i have heard before. scully asks for hair and fiber from the crime scene and these two are like “we don’t have that yet” so she says “um get it?” (not really but basically) (and they claim it was some random guy that shot him… not buying it)

oh! skinner is being wheeled out! she’s off to go investigate. now if it were ME being rolled about with my shirt off after a gunshot wound and emergency surgery, i would not want people seeing that. but hey, she’s a doctor so maybe she’s chill like that. still! i’d be soooo embarrassed omg

SHE GRABS HIS HAND OMG!!!!! he opens his eyes a tiny tiny bit and tells her that he has seen the man who shot him before!!!

man, i thought just the hand grabbing was gonna be all tender, and it was! but getting a clue at who did it was a bonus too

back to the rat bastard and mulder. at least krycek seems aware that mulder can and will kick his ass and is deferential to him. 

scully is looking over skinner’s chart. OH! she asked for guards. and she wants them NOW. she does not CARE about your excuses. WOO!!! she says idgaf if you two agents stand out there YOURSELVES, get GUARDS ON him!!! YAAAAS!

back to krycek and mulder cam. mulder notices that they are being followed and tells him to speed up. at gunpoint! and this mystery vehicle runs them off the road!!!!!!

noooo, their faces are all smushed in. someone pulls rat bastard out and asks where the tape is, but the fellow who attacked him gets flash banged, because again, krycek has alien flash banging powers.

but poor mulder still has his bloody heady on the dash :( he sees some odd flashing 

scully gets called into the lab and this guy has some info on the dude that shot skinner. she says it will take too much time to run the hair sequence, but to do it anyway.

(also, i can’t tell if this is the same guy from the lab as before that clearly had a crush on her or if this is a different one but idk i guess it doesn’t really matter... he doesn’t seem like her type)

so the two men that krycek flash banged last night are now in treatment for radiation, and who is visiting them but cancer man!!! he is once again lighting up as they are dying. he bends down and moves a bandage, and sees the eyes of a patient meet his. but he says to HAVE THE BODIES DESTROYED OMFG HE DOES NOT GIVE A FUUUUCK THIS GUY IS EVIL!!!!

mulder at da hospital. bandage on his head. awwwwww :( it’s so sad and pathetic... he’s baby.

AND SCULLY IS THERE!!!! WITH A SMILE!!!!!! WOOHOO I WISH I COULD LIVE IN THIS MOMENT FOREVER!!! YES YES THOSE ARE MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS!!

the police found him and he mentioned “we” so she says “who’s we” and he has to say KRYCEK… she is (very gently) confused

an excellent person to have by your bedside whilst recovering. 

she tells him that she is sorry for the bad news, but skinner has been shot as well. but the doctors seem to think he’ll be okay. and she has an idea on who it is that pulled the trigger!

GASP!!! she pulls out the scans on the hair. two of them, in fact. the first being from the man who shot skinner, and the second being from the man who shot melissa. and they’re a PERFECT MATCH!!!! CONSPIRACY!!! CONSPIRACY, I CRY!!!

(shrill violins, fade to black)

oh! it’s the united nations alien council. um i realize now i don’t know their actual name. but you know who i’m referring to, right? the guys. the gang. the squad. just a couple of dudes.

they’re discussing the site “WHERE THEY RECOVERED THE UFO” well! there you have it! word of god confirmation! it’s indeed a ufo that the french sailors came across in the last episode!

“it seems we have an information leak, gentlemen”, one of them announces, which makes me say, okaaaay ominous <3

and they say cig man has responded in a way no one could have predicted… omg was he behind the skinner thing…?

scully visiting skinner <3 asking how he is feeling <3 he doesn’t seem surprised about the news his shooter was the same as melissa’s, especially because those three men had warned him before about pursuing her case. he says she should be careful about saying that the case was shut down because people don’t want it to be caught but. it’s looking them right in the face.

OH! the man that shot him was one of the ones who attacked him a few months back on the stairwell! well i didn’t even catch this. some detail noticer i am. AND KRYCEK was the other one!!!! yes, and they stole the tape yes yes i’m recalling!

ohhh it’s serious. he tells her that she cannot afford anger, that if she’s angry she’ll make a mistake. “i’ll be okay”, she says (voice breaking) (<- said by a woman who is lying)

he says that if she can’t keep her head, it’s okay to step away… this feels very chekov’s gun… but she says that’s exactly what they want. OH! i love that she knows she can get to the bottom of this. i love that she believes in herself.

scully is furiously typing on her laptop. asking to devote full bureau resources to finding krycek. got her glasses on n everything. terribly beautiful whilst angry. she is saying he can explain everything that is going on, but i don’t think anyone is gonna listen to herrrr because the fbi does not give a fuck!!!

scully is now entering their office to see the giant yellow scuba suit. “it looked great on me in the store” says mulder, who needs to make a joke or people will die. perhaps he needs to make a joke even more when people really ARE dying.

so, why is it here? great question. it was covered in oil, the french guy was covered in oil, his wife was covered in oil, and it’s all diesel oil from world war two submarines. a new meaning to the term “oiled up”.

theory time with mulder: it’s a medium for an alien creature for body-jumping. he laughs when she laughs, aware of how ridiculous it sounds, but also aware of her thinly veiled fury; what else could he do? he does know how it sounds, he does know what she needs, but the truth. the truth.

so what does this thing living in the oil want with krycek? a great question. 

omg guy from the lone gunmen is ice skating! and so is another one. wow a team bonding mission <3 AND THE OTHER ONE!!! FROHIKE!!! 

is this something they do often... no, this must be a sleuthing mission.

frohike goes in a locker and opens something. GIVES IT TO MULDER!!! YAAAS THE TAPE!!! they say he should “call upon their services more often” YAAAS they want that sweet sweet agent time <3 

but noooo! the tape is gone!!!! mulder gets mad and throws the empty case. still, a reunion with his pals <3

cig man is watching tv. sipping some sort of liquor.

(whenever i see someone drinking a beverage with ice in it on a tv show, i think of that one tiktok of a prop master explaining how they make prop ice and the many different kinds they can do. i think this looks like glass ice to me. shoutout to people who make videos about props; you make my heart very happy)

BRO... THE TAPE JUST APPEARS. KRYCEK HAS ENTERED????? but the guy who shot skinner is there too!!! and is holding krycek at gunpoint!!!!

cig man watches krycek's eyes go all inky (correction: OILY) and black. omg……

cancer man is rolling up 15 minutes late for the UN alien meeting. lmao it's funny in a way. he moved the ufo to a new location! he promises it will be absolutely inaccessible.

someone asks why he won’t bring it to nevada like the others. probs because even the normies know about nevada as the alien place. dweeb.

GASP! they want answers for what happened to skinner. cig man says for all he knows, it's just random. even though they have a drawing of the guy who did it, who is “one of his”, he’s denying it. AND THEY’RE ALL GROANING BECAUSE NO ONE BELIEVES HIM FOR A SECOND LMAOOOOOOO

(so funny to me that despite being on the super secret alien council, cig man still manages to be unprofessional and lie through his teeth to people who seem far more competent, even when secrecy effects the entire planet. something very funny about him lowkey sucking at his job)

so he needs to get the shooter out of the country NOW or else skinner can make an ID and no one can stop the arrest!

back to the agents trying to piece things together. the lone gunmen are babbling on about how to best find what was written on the case but mulder has the secret: rubbing a lil pencil over top LMAOOO. he finds a phone number!!

and who picks it up when he calls but… the un alien club!!!

it’s the well groomed man!!! mulder says krycek gave him the number. and he asks to meet with mulder. allegedly in central park? is this a trap...

so, the dude who did the shooting is named luis. the other agents are saying to scully they can’t look any further than they already have, but she says keep looking, she’s seen stranger. and the lab guy says “i believe she has” when she leaves lmaoooo GET UP. he's down bad fr. pathetic. get up.

i mean i am too but i'd like to think i'd have more dignity about it

mulder in da park. is he alone… are they gonna get him??? the well-groomed man meets him. they’re playing some mental chess with who can ask each other what. so he tells mulder there WAS a ufo at the bottom of the ocean that was shot down during ww2, and a salvage attempt had been made, but there were complications.

so it looks like they’re both looking for krycek. but the well groomed man leaves by saying “anyone can be gotten to”. very very ominous. and mulder calls scully and says check on skinner RIGHT NOW.

she gets down there and he’s NOT THERE??? apparently he was moved to a different hospital. WHO TOOK HIM?????

scully slaps her badge on the door of a ambulance on the side of the road and asks if he’s got a skinner in there. this dude says yeah and he must be freaked tf out, but she’s coming along for the ride now.

skinner wants to know what she’s doing here, and she says she just wanted him to be safe. she pulls her gun out and opens the door and WHO IS IT BUT LUIS!!! WHO FIRES AT SKINNER!

TRAFFIC GUNFIGHT CHASE!!! luis just got hit by a CAR!!! she got him!!!

and she’s SCREAMING at him. screaming like we have never heard before, are you the man that killed my sister??? he’s begging for his life.  he says he can tell her where krycek is…

the police roll up, telling her to put the gun down. and she sadly holds up her badge and explains that she’s basically the police but actually better so y’all are kinda late to the situation. they take him into custody. and she’s tearing up. i do not trust that he doesn’t have a poison tooth in there. 

she calls mulder, who is rummaging through his car, and tells him that he was right, someone was going to kill skinner. and it IS the man who shot her sister. and allegedly krycek is going to north dakota. mulder says please meet me in new york with two tickets to north dakota asap. 

what’s in north dakota, she asks? the salvaged ufo!!!

cut to north dakota cam. agents are rolling up, and how terribly i wish i could see what happened on the flight and ride up to there. how tense the silence was, how valiant the attempts at breaking it were. UGH. someone pls write the fic someday i’m already emotional.

she’s got a vest thing on and it’s cute. i get that we have bigger things at hand but i can still appreciate a vest moment!!

they go into a silo... but the door locks behind them!!! they go 8 stories down!! that is a lot!!!! 

now they’re opening a door to what looks like a nuclear waste thing. idk i don't know much about nukes. but it’s just a big empty silo. so they have to check 199 more. 

except they hear a thunk in the tunnels!!!

scully finds one of the (barely alive?) burn victims that had been flash banged by krycek just as mulder announces “he’s here”, and a large group of soldiers runs in

OH! they go to start running from the soldiers and he grabs her. it was so subtle but so sweet. i’m gonna gnaw at something. 

NOOO! they’re surrounded!!! and cancer man is coming up. she yells that they saw bodies in there and he says “you saw nothing” <- wow absolutely garbage fellow has sunken further than even before by adding gaslighting to his resume

so they’re getting taken into custody but cancer man is going deeper, and he tells the soldiers to take the bodies away. he goes down to the nuclear thingy, and lights up, which i feel would be a bad choice in a circumstance where things were actually nuclear, but okay. 

we see something very dark and oily? and hear people throwing up. OH! it’s krycek, with the black stuff pouring from his eyes and mouth. on top of a triangular looking ufo. the oil is pouring into a spiral thingy? and it gets sucked up. 

MULDER AT HIS DESK WITH HIS GLASSES ON!!!! AND A HEALING CUT ON HIS FOREHEAD!!! could a man be any more attractive? it’s debatable.

knock knock. who is it? it’s skinner!!!! limping, and not supposed to be back in the office for a few more weeks!

mulder gets up to shake his hand and help him across the room. a right gentleman, he can be. OHHH so this is why i have seen those bloopers of skinner with a cane LMAOOOO

he’s looking for scully though lmao. yeah not interested in YOU, mulder. 

mulder thanks him for getting shot because he stood up to the evil. he’s saying no, no, i wasn’t doing that, at all. i don’t know what you’re talking about. but not in a humble brag way, in a denying allegations sort of way. it's interesting. my brain is still stuck on this moment.

he says that he “mistakenly” believed he could bring melissa’s murder to justice. mulder says hey, what do you mean by that? so that is why skinner needs to go see her.

she's out and about, though. she’s bringing flowers to melissa’s grave NOOOOO :((((((( she doesn’t even say anything, she just sits there. 

UNTIL MULDER COMES AND BRINGS FLOWERS TOO??? and she has to brace herself to see him. 

he touches her shoulder gently before he sets them down. oh my GOSH

she tells him about how someone told her the dead speak to you from beyond the grave, and that is what a conscience is. he says that’s interesting, that he’s never thought of it that way. a man who sees her suffering and doesn't know what to say to make it better.

and she thought that finding the man who killed her would bring closure but it didn’t. 

he grabs her by the arm at this point, and says he needs to talk to her. tells her that they found luis dead. whoever was behind it all tried to cover it up. 

“i think the dead are speaking to us, mulder. demanding justice” <-stop. stop i’ll cry. you think i won’t cry? you think, for some reason, i won’t sob? i won’t collapse into a heap? you’d be incorrect. you’d be naive and mistaken. you’d be an utter fool, even in a world of fools.

(muffled screaming of me trying to keep it together)

but funny i should type that, because we also hear some muffled screaming on camera, that of krycek trapped in the ufo?? or in the room with it, deep in the nuclear silo?

episode ends with his screams.

WHAT!!!

so much has happened. and really one thing is on my mind: who is gonna hug scully? who is gonna tell her that the anger is okay, even if it’s futile? who is gonna hold the baddest woman alive close and listen? even if all she has to say is silence? 

RAAAAAAAAH i’m gonna CRY.

i feel like i could write another thinkpiece here but i also feel like i need to let this one sit for a bit. 

scully holding skinner’s hand, scully waiting by mulder’s bedside, scully saving skinner’s life, scully screaming, so guttural, at the man that killed her sister. scully in glasses and scully in vests and scully in coats. furious and devastating and calculating and guilty. 

i have some major questions re: krycek and cancer man and why don’t they just deal with him already??? like for real. i know the answer is gonna be that someone from higher up would just replace him, but i do think it is funny how he goes about blatantly committing all those crimes and then clocks into work the next day like nothing happened. and no one can act like anything happened because they’ll tear the fbi down if they do. we all have a coworker like that, don’t we? that sucks terribly but you can’t do anything about it because the inside supports how terrible they suck? sigh. many such cases.

krycek, if i’m supposed to feel bad for you, i don’t. starve in that ufo and see if i give a damn. 

skinner denying any concept of heroism… i think he’s doing it to keep himself safe. like he said to scully, any sort of accusations are risky. i don’t think he wants anyone to get the idea that he is a hero, even if he is in reality. i also think he has a complex and a great fear of being PERCEIVED as a hero after the things he did during war, and who knows what else he did but hasn't spoken about. but interesting still that he would deny a gesture as simple as being thanked. 

there are many dots in my head. i would like to think they are connecting, but honestly i’ve got matty healy dupe mr. mulder on my mind still just because it was so funny. and then also scully angst. and a deep deep desire to get into that car on the drive from the airport to north dakota, to just listen in on whatever went down. maybe i’ll have to write it if no one else does! isn’t that terrible? when no one else will write the exact thing you want to read, so you have to do it?

(i’ve actually never written fic before so that would be a major commitment. but a one shot here or there sounds interesting)

anyway. lots on my mind. it was a good episode, but kept a lot of things unsolved. which is the point, i know, but they dangle the answers in front of you!! then snatch them away!! i wanted a tiny bit more of the tea. 

but i guess, on the other hand, we know what the tea is, don’t we? we know cancer man and the UN alien squad are hiding this, they’re aware that this alien creature can cause radiation, they’re aware of ufos and they’re covering them up. they might not be aware of the exact nature of the creature, but they ARE aware of it, and that it’s a weapon of mass destruction. what isn’t clear is how tf krycek got roped into this. but again i really dgaf about his loser ass. 

i’m plotting. i’m pinning things on boards and tying them together with string. and then making predictions from there.

(actually, think it’s cool we see a bunch of different kinds of aliens on this show. there were the poison blood clones, standard alien 👽 fellow, and now the oil creature. fun that we get multiple perspectives and takes on what could be. perhaps scarier than just plain old little 👽, but!!! interesting for worldbuilding purposes)

back to plotting….